, the long, heavy braid, and
the big inquiring eyes--were washing up the supper dishes. They were
alone, for Charles Stuart and his father and Long Pete Fowler, the
hired man, were away at the barn attending to the milking and the
chores. The long bars of golden light from the setting sun came
slanting down through the purple pines of the Long Hill. The snowy
fields were gleaming with their radiance--rose pink and pure gold with
deep blue shadows along the fences and in the hollows. The old
kitchen, spotlessly clean, was flooded with the evening light--the
yellow painted floor, the shining kettle sputtering comfortably on the
stove, and the tin milk-pans ranged along the walls all gave back the
sunset glow. This was the hour Elizabeth enjoyed most--the hour when
she and Mother MacAllister were safe from the teasing and tormenting of
Charles Stuart.

She was wiping the cups and saucers with great pride and care. They
were the half-dozen blue willow-pattern cups and saucers which Mother
MacAllister had saved from the wreck of her once complete set. They
were used only on rare occasions, but to-night Elizabeth had been
permitted to set them out. She never tired of hearing their romantic
story, and Mother MacAllister told it again, as they washed and wiped
and put them away on the top shelf of the cupboard.

They had been Mother MacAllister's finest wedding present, given just
before she left the Old Country, years and years ago, when she and
Father MacAllister were young, and there was no Charles Stuart. They
had packed the precious blue dishes in a barrel with hay, and had
brought them safely over all the long way. The stormy sea voyage of
two months in a sailing vessel, the oft-interrupted train and boat
journey from Quebec to Toronto, the weary jolting of the wagon-trail to
the Holland Landing, and the storms of Lake Simcoe--the blue dishes,
safe in their hay nest, had weathered them all. But the great disaster
came when they were near home, just coming along the rough wagon track
cut through the bush from Cheemaun--Champlain's Road, they called it
even then. And such a road as it was, little Lizzie never saw--all
stumps and roots, and great mud-holes where the wagon wheels sunk to
the axle. There were two wagons tied together and drawn by a team of
oxen, and the barrel of precious dishes was in the first one. And just
as they were coming bumping and rattling down Arrow Hill, the hind
wagon came untied a